


tacky gifts (are the best gifts)

by preromantics



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Fluff, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Kris rolls his eyes at the presents under his tree, the offending wrapping paper being a bright glittering silver with a blue almost plaid pattern. Kris likes it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	tacky gifts (are the best gifts)

**Author's Note:**

> Advent fic, originally posted on 12/10/2010.

Kris' phone vibrates against his thigh just as he starts to doze off on the couch, the lights on the Christmas tree in front of him sparkling behind his eyelids. 

 _what's w/ the truly tacky paper on the gifts on the right??_  his screen says, right under Adam's name. Kris had sent him the text a few hours before after getting his presents laid out. He'd have everyone over tomorrow, even Katy -- he'd bought her several nice things, almost the same amount as he used to get her, and she was bringing her new puppy, which Kris was (probably sadly) excited about -- and he had spent more hours than he thought possible wrapping each gift. 

 _you can't just appreciate the wrapping paper_ , Kris texts back, grinning down at his phone. He'd invited Adam over for Christmas day dinner, though they hadn't seen each other in a while -- their contact had definitely increased in the past year since Kris' amicable divorce, to the point where they called each other more days than they didn't, but they still hadn't seen each other for months.

(The last time they'd seen each other was backstage at one of Kris' smaller venue shows in LA, and Kris had forgotten what it was like to hug Adam, to feel so completely overwhelmed by how they fit together, even after all the time they'd spent apart.

Except, then they'd gotten a little more than drunk in Kris' new house, more than half his boxes still unpacked, even though he'd moved in three months ago, and Kris had curled up against Adam's side and gradually ended up in his lap as the night wore on, and they'd -- not made-out, just sort of pressed together, familiar and warm and everything Kris needed and wanted and -- he'd fallen asleep and woken up to a Adam-less house and a smiley face text on his phone, like that meant anything at all.)

Anyway, Adam said he was going to be across the country tomorrow, and Kris knew that, but it didn't stop him from hoping, just a little. 

Kris phone vibrates warm and easy against his thigh after a few seconds:  _i don't know much abt wrapping paper but i know lots about tacky, krisallen, and that is tacky_

Kris rolls his eyes at the presents under his tree, the offending wrapping paper being a bright glittering silver with a blue almost plaid pattern. Kris likes it.

 _it reminded me of you_ , Kris texts,  _sparkly and stands out against every thing else in the room_.

Sometimes Kris thinks his automatic responses to Adam -- and Adam's sometimes over-the-line texts back aren't good for either of them. They're not, it's not -- just. 

 _i'm glad you think i'm tacky_ , comes Adam's reply. 

Kris shakes his head at his tree, grinning a little fondly at the paper, how it's reflecting all the lights on the tree and bouncing the color around in little prisms. 

 _i could come over tmmr wrapped in it though and then it wouldn't be as tacky, maybe_ , Adam texts. 

 _you do have experience making tacky outfits somehow not tacky,_  Kris texts, easy. He should probably call, give in to the indulgence to hear Adam's voice, but he's pretty sure Adam is in some timezone where it's ridiculous-o'clock getting ready to do a bunch of New Year's stuff at the end of the week. 

 _i make tacky hot :),_  Adam says, the response coming quick, and Kris rolls himself off the couch to get ready for bed before he ends up texting some sort of very enthusiastic agreement. 

Adam texts  _merry cmas, kristopher,_  right at midnight in Kris’ timezone, though Kris is already in bed and half asleep, thinking about all the things he has to cook tomorrow and how much of it his mother will volunteer to do for him -- but when he rolls over for his phone he grins, slow and warm. 

\--

Kris has never really had to worry about waking up to someone breaking into his house. He’d invested in good security systems once he got the money and knew he had lots of things worth protecting (his guitars, Katy, their really expensive mattress that someone would have to be really ingenious to steal, anyway). 

Except he wakes up on Christmas morning to a crash and then someone cursing, loudly, and Kris practically jumps all the way out of the bed, nearly tripping on the tangle of his sheets to rush towards the living room.

He doesn’t see a burglar, though -- instead he sees Adam, wrapped from head to toe in sparkly silver and blue plaid wrapping paper, half holding up Kris’ tree with both a foot and an arm. 

“Kris!” Adam says, somewhat breathlessly.

“You killed my tree,” Kris says, unsure what he should laugh at first. 

“Only because it’s really fucking hard to wrap myself in this paper and still be able to walk,” Adam says. 

Kris walks over slowly, looking down for broken ornaments on the carpet -- he doesn’t see any, thankfully -- before reaching up to push the tree back into a standing position with Adam. 

“Um, hi,” Adam says, after a second, when they’ve both leaned away from the tree.

“Hi,” Kris says, though he’s not sure it comes out the way he means it to. 

“I heard you were cooking dinner,” Adam says, “I couldn’t miss that disaster.”

“Don’t remind me,” Kris says. He’s a little cold, his shirt is a worn and threadbare v-neck that he realizes, suddenly and embarrassingly, was one of Adam’s that he’s kept for years.

“I remember that shirt,” Adam says, like he just noticed, too, popping his arm out of a crinkle of wrapping paper with a loud, obnoxious noise to reach out and run his fingers along the fraying neck, right against the skin of Kris’ collarbone. 

“It’s comfy,” Kris says, barely managing not to duck his head. 

Adam smiles, sort of small, and takes a small step back. He gestures at himself with his free hand. “How do you like your gift?” he asks.

“You aren’t naked under there, right?” Kris asks -- and, wow, he should never try and deal with Adam pre-coffee.

Adam grins and raises an eyebrow, “Should I have gone down that road?”

Kris makes a show of looking over at the clock on his mantle and shrugs, easy, warm now from his chest and radiating outwards. “It’s six in the morning,” he says, “too early for nakedness.”

Adam shakes his head, “You are sadly mistaken, Kristopher,” he says, “it’s  _never_  to early for nakedness.”

Kris squints at him. “Coffee,” he says. 

“Unwrap me first,” Adam says, and Kris makes a face, reaching out to pull at part of the paper.

It takes a few minutes to get Adam untwisted, both of them laughing by the end, and as soon as he’s free of all the paper, Adam ducks down and pulls Kris right against him, hugging him tight against his chest.

“I missed you,” Adam says, warm and right into the side of Kris’ face. 

Kris relaxes right against him at that, sucking in a deep breath mostly full of Adam’s favorite cologne and of Adam in general. “Yeah,” he says, mouthing the word into Adam’s chest.

Adam pulls back halfway. “I travel on a red eye for six hours and all I get is,  _yeah_?” he says, but he’s grinning, warm and bright against the morning light in Kris’ livingroom. 

Kris scrunches his nose up and opens his mouth to say something, but Adam swoops down before he can, fitting their lips together in the same way Kris tried so hard to forget and yet never bothered to stop remembering. He kisses Adam back easily, fitted wonderfully close against his chest still. 

“I bought you a tacky plaid mug in Australia,” Adam says, when they part, “in case you wanted a real gift instead of this, but it’s still in the mail somewhere.”

“This is --” Kris starts, searching for the right words. He shrugs when he can’t find any. 

“Okay?” Adam asks, quietly, grin still on his face.

“More than,” Kris says, bouncing on his feet a little. "It's the best tacky gift ever. Even better than a tacky mug."

“Good,” Adam says, ducking back down to catch Kris’ lips, wrapping an arm around his waist from behind.

\--

They do round-table questions during dinner to keep the conversation going constantly, going around person to person for a new question that everyone has to answer. 

“Favorite gift of all time?” Kim asks, peering intently at Kris’ dad across the table, like there is only one correct answer for him when the question gets around and he better have the answer right; most of the table laughs. 

Kris has to answer first, though, and thinks about it seriously for a second, going back through all his birthdays and Christmases, before he looks across the table at Adam, feels the weight of where their feet have been pressed together all night.

“A mug,” he says, seriously, “a really great, fantastic mug from Australia.” 

He barely manages to keep his grin across the table and Adam decent, doesn’t care if anyone notices, and Adam grins right back, warm and familiar and new all at the same time.


End file.
